


night does not bid us rest

by tansypool



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-30 23:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20781572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tansypool/pseuds/tansypool
Summary: An unexpected and unwanted visitor, on an evening in London.





	night does not bid us rest

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Effie for your beta read and your endless support!

Lyra is an odd child, Marisa is finding – stubborn and argumentative, but wide-eyed and inquisitive, and far more obedient than she’d have expected a child raised by or near Asriel to be. That is to say, she follows directions occasionally, and on those occasions, sometimes without complaint.

On this particular evening, Lyra is – as she always is – completely willing to get ready for bed, to carefully wash her own hair and drink a glass of warm milk without fuss. The door on her bedroom is barely closed when Marisa hears a knock outside, that she doesn’t particularly want to respond to. There are few people she’d expect at this hour, none on this night, and nobody that she wants around while she knows Lyra will still be awake.

She isn’t expecting the man on the other side of the door – he shouldn’t be anywhere near London, let alone her home.

As soon as she opens the door slightly, he smirks in a way she has long grown to resent, as though he’s expecting to be welcomed back with open arms. He knows as well as she does that he won’t be, but he enjoys annoying her in any way he can, as soon as he possibly can.

He skips the pleasantries, though she knows he is barely capable of them in the first place. “Did you know, Marisa, that the _panserbjørne_ are starting to take bribes?” He draws her name out, smirking even more as he does.

“I suppose, Asriel,” she spits at him, elongating his name in the same way, “That’s why you’re here – nothing left after you bought your way out of trouble, and nobody else left to crawl back to?”

He ignores her question, instead melodramatically peering past her and the monkey on her shoulder, staring into the house. “Don’t suppose there’s a child I might know in here – or did you spirit her away so you didn’t have to look at her?”

Marisa thinks she can hear the sound of a door opening, with a child inevitably behind it, trying to listen without being seen. She doesn’t need to check to know – at Lyra’s age, she would have done the same thing.

“She’s in bed – she does need to sleep, though you wouldn’t have seen enough of her to know that, would you?”

“I’m surprised you’ve figured it out at all.” He says it a little louder, enough for his voice to carry far enough to be recognised.

There are footsteps coming down the hall, and Marisa braces herself, hearing a terribly excited, “Uncle Asriel!” There’s no chance of slamming the door in his face now, and she regrets letting him open his mouth at all.

Asriel smirks again – it’s already infuriating, how much he does it – and says, “So kind of you to let me see my niece, Marisa; did you say something about bikavér?”

She relents, but not without glaring at him, and lets him inside. Lyra bounces on her toes, her dæmon fluttering chaffinch-formed around her, before he flies between the paws of Asriel’s snow leopard, flickering to an ermine to try to trip her up as she ignores him. The child looks far too excited to have heard much of the conversation, at least, walking backwards so that she can stare at Asriel, until she stumbles a little and forces herself to walk forwards again.

Marisa lets them wander far enough down the hall that they won’t hear her take a deep breath to steel herself for conversations she does not want to have. He wasn’t supposed to be here – he wasn’t supposed to be in the country at all. But he is, as though nothing had gone wrong, assuring Lyra that he’ll get her a carved walrus tusk he seems to have promised her the next time he goes.

She shouldn’t have let him in. But, as she tells herself, she’d rather not make herself an enemy in Lyra’s mind – she’s young and impressionable and it would be far too easily done, far too difficult to mend.

At least Asriel’s presence has given her licence to open a bottle of wine. It won’t make him easier to deal with, but it will give her something to do with her hands, besides give in to the urge to slap him. Marisa reaches the dining room and finds herself skimming wine labels, and her monkey finds his customary place, high above.

Lyra is already settled with her chin in her hands, staring at Asriel across the table, rapt with attention despite weary eyes. Asriel’s stories have her entranced, and Marisa is sure that there is probably something resembling the truth buried in them, though the thought makes her feel as though she’s giving him too much credit. She can’t help but feel like the expression on the child’s face is one that Asriel is used to lying to.

She hands him a glass of a syrah she’s been saving for the next guest she wants to drive out of her house, and leans against the sideboard to drink half of her own glass, where Lyra can’t see her, but she knows that Asriel can. He definitely notices – he’s had half an eye on her throughout the conversation, even if he doesn’t let on. But he keeps talking, as though nothing is amiss.

“The _panserbjørne_ aren’t easily tricked, but their king is – he’s been tricked before, which is why he had me arrested. But I tricked him right back.” He sips his wine, as though he’s thinking about what to say next, as though he hadn’t rehearsed it in his head, before continuing nonchalantly, “I think somebody wanted me out of the country, and was willing to do anything to keep me there.”

Marisa tries not to roll her eyes. Lyra still looks fascinated, her dæmon just as wide-eyed and curious as she is, perching ermine-formed, and they stay stock-still as Asriel lies his way through his journey home. She’s long since learned to spot his lies, as easily as she sees through Lyra’s, but it rarely benefits her to point out the lack of truths. In this case, she sits between them at the end of the table, watches Asriel, and tries not to listen to a word he says.

She’s vaguely aware of her monkey still sitting a little way away, on a shelf she leaves empty for him – anything kept there would end up on the floor the moment he got bored. She doesn’t mind it when he sits up there, though, as he’s far enough away from her that it unnerves some people. However, Asriel knows her far too well for that to work, and Lyra is usually more curious about it than anything.

Her monkey’s full attention is focused on the snow leopard just a little too far away from him, and it’s only Marisa’s own seething tenseness that keeps him from leaping to her side, to run his fingers through her fur, as he so often has done, so long ago. Instead, he sits stone-still high above, and the snow leopard rests by Asriel’s feet, sphinx-like and impassive.

She only finds herself listening again when she hears Asriel say, “And Mrs Coulter has been keeping you busy here, I believe?”

Marisa braces herself for an all-too-detailed summary of the past few weeks, but she’s at least comforted in knowing that Asriel won’t be talking. At this point, she’ll take what few mercies there are, given that the only comfort in the syrah is the wince that Asriel made on his first sip. But Lyra keeps it surprisingly brief, even as she talks without stopping to breathe, her story looping back on itself as she remembers details – she gets to the events of the day, their lunch at the Royal Arctic Institute and an afternoon spent on geography, and begins to draw it out again.

Asriel doesn’t interrupt, but waits until a lull in the conversation to speak – completely unlike him, and Lyra looks unsure of it. Marisa isn’t shocked that he hasn’t spent the past decade learning to be a slightly more polite conversationalist.

“So you’re enjoying London, I take it. Not missing home at all?”

“I en’t—I’m _not_ missing Jordan, not too much, there’s so much to see here and there’s so much to learn and Mrs Coulter is teaching me so much, I never thought there’d be so much to know what you can eat in the North, or about face powders, or anything like that, and she’s teaching me it all.”

“Mrs Coulter has many hidden secrets, it seems.” Asriel’s eyebrows lift a little, and he grins, as though it’s a lack of knowledge that he’s sharing with Lyra, rather than knowing too much.

A string of language she’d never repeat in front of Lyra runs through Marisa’s mind, as much as she would like to spit it at Asriel. But instead, she keeps her facade up – she sips her wine, before a carefully neutral, “A lady must always have her secrets.”

Asriel’s grin slips ever so slightly into his ever-present self-satisfied smirk, but Lyra doesn’t read into it, if she notices it at all – she nods, eyes somehow growing wider, as though mentally cataloguing whatever little secrets she considers worth keeping.

Asriel doesn’t seem to care about Lyra’s brief little daydream. “A fact I’m sure you’re teaching Lyra well.” Marisa feels her jaw clench, as she ignores the stare accompanying Asriel’s jab.

Lyra glances between them, grinning and oblivious, not nearly as subtle as she likely thinks herself to be. Marisa doesn’t want to think about what fantasies the girl has conjured up, or what sorts of ideas she must be getting. She stares at them, but remains completely oblivious to the slight roll of Asriel’s eyes, and as she begins to speak again, she loses every word in a deep yawn – she hides it behind her hands, and is awash with embarrassment when she realises that she’s given herself away, her eyes wide with guilt.

“I think you’d best be off to bed,” Marisa says, her tone allowing no argument to anybody present. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow, and your uncle will be leaving soon anyway.”

Lyra doesn’t question it, and slides from her chair, her slippers barely making a sound against the wooden floor. She kisses Marisa’s cheek unprompted, and says an almost rote-learned, “Goodnight, Mrs Coulter.” She turns a little on her toes, and although she doesn’t move towards him, she grins at Asriel. “I hope the _panserbjørne_ help you find whoever arrested you, I really want to be able to see you in the North. We could come visit you…”

Marisa stares at Lyra as she rambles about her imagined trip to the North, waiting for her to finish, her lips pursed and an eyebrow raised. The girl eventually notices, and the words falter in her throat, her face freezing as though she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

All Marisa has to say is, “_Bed_,” and Lyra turns on her heels without another word, her dæmon scampering alongside her as a snow leopard cub, tripping over his too-big paws.

Asriel watches them leave, almost curious, and he doesn’t speak until Lyra’s bedroom door in its frame echoes throughout the house.

And then he stares at Marisa, almost amused. “What are you trying to do, turn her into a pet?”

She rolls her eyes, with no need to disguise it any more. “That’s rich, coming from someone who let her grow up like a wild animal.”

“I suppose you think she’s tamed, then?” And then he drinks, slowly but surely, giving no indication that he is listening.

“She takes baths without arguing, which seems to be more than you ever managed.”

Asriel smiles from behind his wine glass as he drinks, saying nothing.

Marisa doesn’t give him a chance to stop drinking, to get a word in. “Are you going to leave us in peace, then? You’ve spent half an hour with her tonight, which, from the sounds of things, should be more than enough until she turns fifteen.”

Asriel finally puts his glass down, and watches the liquid as he swirls it in his glass. “I was going to finish my wine first. But this is disgusting, Marisa, I don’t know how you expect me to drink it.”

“Don’t, then.” He’s drunk half of what she gave him, so it can’t be that offensive.

“You seem fine with it, but from everything I’ve heard, your standards have somewhat dropped in recent years. Or were the rumours about Boreal as false as everything else in your life?”

It takes all of the self-control that Marisa can muster not to slam her glass against the table. She doesn’t raise her voice, so she leans far closer to him than any sense should have allowed, and snaps, barely above a whisper, “Why are you here?”

He leans in close, close enough that she can feel his breath on her face, and snaps back, “I’d like to know that my daughter hasn’t wound up kidnapped like every other vagrant child in Brytain.”

“It’s a wonder she wasn’t, but I’m just shocked you noticed she was gone at all.” She can hear the growl in her monkey’s throat, can see the swaying of his tail out of the corner of her eye. He’s barely a foot from the snow leopard, who has barely moved.

Asriel, however, has tensed slightly, his jaw clenched, and he looks as though he’s about to start grinding his teeth – with how much she knows him to do it, she’s surprised he has any left.

“She does notice how often you’re gone,” Marisa murmurs as she taps her fingers against her glass, watching the words die in Asriel’s throat. “With how desperate you were to find her – don’t think I didn’t hear about that debacle after the flood as soon as it happened – I’d have thought you’d have been a little more involved afterwards, rather than just being some mythological figure who encourages her to break into crypts when he bothers to see her.”

Asriel glares at her. “I’m surprised you managed to get that much out from her.”

“She does actually say a lot when she’s going on endlessly.”

“Of course, one can hardly blame you for still listening to her when she goes on. You’ve not had a decade of mindless drivel to put up with.”

“And whose fault is that? In case it somehow slipped past you, I had to have you arrested in order to get near my own daughter!” She can feel the heat rising in her cheeks, at the words she is surprised to hear coming out of her own mouth. “And it’s a good thing I did, because I don’t know what would have happened to her if I hadn’t. She’d probably have turned out far too much like you.”

“You say that as though her turning out like _you_ would be an improvement.”

Marisa ignores the comment – arguments with Asriel have always come back to him trying to find a sore spot, and digging at it. She’s long since learned to deal with it. “Do you know what she did, when I told her about the planets orbiting the sun? She _laughed_. I’d have thought there would be fewer gaps in her education given she grew up in a college, but that seems to be expecting too much of you.”

Asriel shrugs, as though little else could have been expected from him. “She’s never been one to stick with her lessons.”

“I can’t imagine why she would want to skip lectures on anbaromagnetism when she doesn’t know how to multiply and divide.” Lyra’s lessons in mathematics are not something Marisa particularly wants to think about, the lack of an education horrifically evident throughout.

Asriel mockingly lifts his eyebrows. “Oh, so you have managed to teach her something useful then, rather than – what was it – face powder, and finding food in a North that we both know full well that you’ll never let her near?”

“Well, it makes sense that you would be impressed by that. What, pray tell, have you done for her besides disappoint her repeatedly?”

Asriel stares at the ceiling for a moment, as though he’s thinking of what to say, but Marisa knows he’s just drawing it out. “I haven’t kidnapped any of her friends.”

“I haven’t _kidnapped_ anyone. Don’t be daft.” Marisa rolls her eyes, and pauses with her glass by her lips – the wine has somehow gotten worse since opening it, and she can’t keep up the pretence of enjoying it, so she places it back on the table, pushing it away from herself. “And I wasn’t the one who rode in under the cover of darkness to secrete her away from nuns.”

“That wasn’t—you didn’t care then, why do you care now?”

“I happen to be trying to look past the end of my own nose, something I’m sure you’ll try some day.”

At this, Asriel rolls his eyes and laughs, a short, humourless laugh. “And I’m sure some people might even believe that if you told them.”

She belatedly realises that their conversation has devolved into them rolling their eyes and insulting each other like children, and Marisa takes a second to collect herself, to drink from the wine that is somehow not as sour as everything they’ve said, anything to stop herself from spitting curses in Asriel’s face until he leaves.

Unfortunately, he notices her momentary hesitation, and leans in, staring her in the eye. “Lyra ought to be back where she belongs, not gallivanting about London while you play house until you can make her useful.”

“How is sending her back to Oxford to be ignored by you and neglected by everybody else the better option, Asriel? She’s perfectly safe with me, as much as you might be convinced otherwise. She ought to be growing up among her own kind, not gyptian strays and gutter rats. She’s old enough that she should at least be aware of the words _please_ and _thank you_, but even they seem to have been beyond her comprehension until a fortnight ago.”

“At least she’s happy there.” Asriel leans on the table as he says it, holding himself closer to her, and she finds herself staring at his face, far too closely.

“Or so she’ll have you believe. She’s far too good of a liar.”

“I can’t imagine where she gets it.” Asriel says, his tone pointed. But then it softens, as he says, “She gets a lot from you.”

His knee nudges against hers, and she’s reminded of how closely they are sat, both of them leaning in far too close to each other, slowly drifting closer despite their argument. She’s not sure he even realised what he did, but she doesn’t flinch, and doesn’t move away. She can hear paws against the tile, and she knows her monkey is sat infuriatingly close to the snow leopard, and can’t quite bring herself to care.

She can’t bear to let their argument be anything but that, and she says, “Don’t think you can just march in here and spirit her away in the dead of night to be left chasing after scholars for a scrap of attention again.” She can feel her own tone soften, something beyond her control, and she lets it stay there as she continues. “She won’t take well to it – she does actually like it in London, you know.”

He doesn’t respond, leaving her words hanging in the air. Instead, he swirls the little liquid left in his glass, but makes no move to place it down, to leave her in peace – he just stares at her, with a far softer expression than she expects, and it sends a jolt through her. She’s seen that expression on his face before, with fewer lines around his eyes and less grey in his hair, so very long ago.

She could ask him to stay – offer him a glass of something less foul, lead him to her bedroom, pretend that nothing has happened since the last night she spent in his arms. It would be easy, she thinks, to fall asleep next to him, to pretend, for a moment, that all those years hadn’t happened.

She’s well aware of the same thoughts running through his mind – the way his breathing shifts, in a way she knows all too well, despite years of trying to push it out of her mind. The way his eyes trace her face, staring into her own, flicking towards her lips.

The seconds seem to stretch out between them, frozen, silent beyond the sound of their breath, Marisa hyperaware of her pulse hammering in her ears. And then, in that same, slow, drawn-out second, she pulls him close, and his fingers tangle in her hair, their lips crashing together. His tongue is at her lips, and she responds as she always has, her head spinning at the touch, her fingers scratching at the nape of his neck, her nails digging into his skin as he leans into the kiss, with a force as dizzying as it was the first time she had felt it.

And just as quickly as it began, she pulls away, ignoring the sudden heat coursing through her, ignoring the tug at her heart as her monkey backs away from the snow leopard, trying to ignore everything but the fact that it should not have happened.

The pain and the heat are still running through her, and Asriel’s fingers are still loosely in her hair, with his face, his lips, all far too close, but she looks him in the eye and whispers a ragged, “Get out of my house.”

She tries to suppress the shallow breaths she knows are all she can manage, and stares at him until he stands, until he leaves the room. He reaches down and skims his fingers over the fur of his snow leopard – she can see her monkey watching far too closely, but he gives no indication of his envy, of his longing.

A few seconds, enough to collect herself slightly, and she follows Asriel to the door, to assure herself that he is indeed leaving.

He pauses on the threshold, watching her as he speaks. “It won’t last, you know.”

She can guess exactly what he means, and doesn’t care for him to clarify. But even still, thoughts rush through her mind, of taking back the last words she said, of leading him to her bed, consequences be damned. Instead, she spits out, “Goodnight, Asriel,” and all but slams the door in his face.

She locks the door behind him, but feels no better for seeing him gone, the what-could-have-beens inescapable in her mind’s eye, her skin still prickling hot and her pulse still erratic. Her monkey scratches at the door, but without his usual energy, the scratches feeble.

She reaches down, and lets him climb to her shoulder, and they go to bed, alone.


End file.
